Love 'really is blind'

Shakespeare proven

American scientists have made an advance to prove Shakespeare's dictum, ‘love is blind and lovers cannot see’. A brain in love looks like a neurological fireworks display. The ventral tegmental area and ventral striatum, located in the centre of the brain, light up as the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine spring into action, causing a person to have short attention spans, feel happy and yearn for the object of her desire.

Love decoded

The love-struck participants could readily tick off traits or characteristics they didn't particularly like about their lovers, but under the influence of pleasure-enhancing dopamine and other monoamines, they quickly ignore those faults. Fisher explained: "Love is extremely blind once you've chosen your partner, but it's not so blind while you're making that choice. Basically, this concept of who you choose is like a funnel. At any point, there are breaking points, moments where it's just not going to work."

Mate selection

Interestingly, mate selection is fairly pragmatic. People subconsciously select mates who come from common socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, geographies, education levels and upbringings. Thus, when we're searching for love, we can reject those who don't share commonalities and mesh with what Fisher calls our ‘love maps,’ or the temperaments and features we develop attractions to from childhood. That way, we don't fall in love with just anyone.

First kiss

Many a times the first kiss can ignite a blinding neurological love reaction, activating the dopamine reward system and setting off an addictive response to one's beloved. "The first kiss may not make a relationship, but it can clearly break a relationship...What happens is a lot of information from a lot of different modalities is brought to bear on the first kiss - the posture, the odour, the extent to which there's an open mouth kiss, the extent to which there's an exchange of saliva."

We are animals

But while humans are hard-wired to fall in love intensely, those neurochemical blinders eventually wear off as we settle into relationships. According to Fisher's research, as with drugs, people develop a tolerance for the neurotransmitters that produce the head-over-heels feelings and excitement of early love. Fisher said: "By and large, we are an animal that pairs up to rear our young."

Related Articles :